


he's making a list, checking it twice

by theyellowumbrella



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, Gen, Pure unadulterated Christmas fluff, but generally veeeery fluffy, lowkey weirdly angsty at parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 14:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16788868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyellowumbrella/pseuds/theyellowumbrella
Summary: A family trip to Santa's grotto doesn't exactly go to plan.





	he's making a list, checking it twice

**Author's Note:**

> just .... pure fluff. i love them.

It’s advertised all over the village for weeks before it actually happens – Brenda’s tacked posters up all across the windows of the café, making them impossible to miss; Rodney’s been shoving leaflets into the hands of every unsuspecting customer just looking for their morning latte; Doug’s been talking the ears off anyone who comes too near to the community garden for comfort. It’s been near impossible to escape, so really, Charity figures she shouldn’t be surprised when Vanessa presents her with one of the leaflets one day, extraordinarily wide smile on face and eyes lit up bright with excitement to match.

“Can we?” she asks. Her voice is almost a squeal, high enough that Charity thinks that if she were only a few years older, she probably wouldn’t have heard it at all.

She takes the leaflet from Vanessa’s hands, rolling her eyes at the 2007-esque WordArt they’d opted for. The thing’s an eyesore, and probably half of the reason they’re having to do so much aggressive advertisement, because she can’t see this racking in many customers.

“You do realise it’s not gonna be the real Santa, right babe?” At Vanessa’s exasperated look, she drops her jaw open. “ _Babe,_ ” she emphasises, “you do realise that Santa isn’t –“

“Oh, shut up,” she says, snatching the leaflet back out Charity’s hands and furrowing her brow. “I meant for the kids, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Charity echoes, unable to leave it without picking at her girlfriend just a little bit more. Vanessa frowns harder, but Charity can see the smile she’s trying her hardest to bite down threatening to peek through. “When is it, then?”

Vanessa perks up. “This Saturday.” She stabs a finger at the corresponding words on the leaflet, which are written in an almost blinding hot pink; Charity winces at just the sight. “So, yay or nay?”

She pretends to mull it over, just to set Vanessa on edge if not anything else. If she can’t have a little fun, what’s the point in this whole longterm relationship malarkey? Vanessa bounces on her heels, unable to stand still for even a minute in typical Vanessa fashion, and Charity can’t help but smile at how ridiculously predictable her girlfriend is.

“Oh, pleaaase, Charity,” she whines. She juts her lip out in the most pathetic puppy dog face possible, and Charity’s madder at herself than is probably healthy because unfortunately, it works every time. “The boys will love it, you know they will.”

“Hmm,” she hums. She waits a second before letting out a long, drawn out sigh, rolling her eyes as dramatically as she can. “I suppose.”

Vanessa squeals even louder than the last time, practically launching herself across the bar and into Charity’s arms, pressing an overeager kiss to her mouth. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says against her lips, smile burning itself onto Charity’s.

Yeah, she figures - a couple hours in the cold humouring Doug’s inevitably poor Santa impersonation can’t be too bad if this is her repayment.

*

Charity might have been an easy sell, but when it comes to convincing Noah to come, it’s like drawing blood from a stone.

Vanessa’s the first to try, Charity having warned her that since she’s the one so desperate to go, she’s the one that has to try and force him to agree. At first, she starts out gently – bringing it up over breakfast after making him two slices of toasts slathered so heavily with Nutella that she’s scared he might have a heart attack before he can either agree or tell her where to stick it.

That, of course, doesn’t work, because it’s Noah, and she was stupid for ever hoping that he might make her life even just a little bit easy.

After that, she tries with the guilt trip, laying it on thick about how gutted the boys will be if they don’t go, and how it’s their first Christmas all together as a family, doesn’t he want to celebrate it altogether?

All she gets back is that he’s not attached to the boys on some invisible tether so if they want to go so desperately then they can, and that she might be his mum’s girlfriend but she’s no family of his.

She even tries to bribe him into it, practically harassing him with texts promising to buy him whatever video game he wants if he’ll just put a smile on for a few hours and pretend he wants anything to do with them.

Nothing.

Eventually, she shirks the responsibility on to Charity, who accepts without much hassle because, quite frankly, she’s sick of her girlfriend’s complaints every time Noah inevitably shoots her down. Thankfully, she knows her son better than to assume that simply _asking_ him will produce the response she wants, so she resorts to the only method she knows:

She threatens him.

Well, _threatens_ sounds bad. It’s not so much a threat, more of a gentle suggestion that if he doesn’t find himself at Santa’s Grotto with them come Saturday morning, having breakfast with the boys and telling Doug what he wants for Christmas, he won’t have a Playstation to play all of Vanessa’s promised games on come the afternoon. That, of course, does the trick.

Typical teenage boy - utterly predictable.

*

To his credit, Noah’s up and ready a good fifteen minutes before he has to be on Saturday morning. He even helps Vanessa clear up the boys’ cups and bowls from breakfast while Charity gets them dressed upstairs. He isn’t _happy_ about it, but he does it nonetheless, and that’s all they can ask from him, really.

The village is all decked out, the café a surprisingly good Santa’s Grotto considering it was solely decorated by Rodney, Doug and Liv. Doug’s sat centre stage, all decked out in his Santa outfit. Charity manages to snap a sneaky pic while Vanessa’s preoccupied with making sure the boys stand still while they line up, setting herself a mental reminder to make sure the picture finds itself plastered all across Facebook, just for maximum embarrassment.

Rodney’s stood at the door practically forcing instant cups of hot chocolate into the hands of anyone who comes through the door, which Charity supposes is nice in theory but a little threatening in practice. Whatever, it tastes good, and it shuts Noah up for a few minutes, so despite Rodney’s frighteningly large smile, she’s gonna take it as a positive.

The line is frustratingly long, but Moses and Johnny don’t seem to mind, taking it upon themselves to chase each other about the café, squealing excitedly while doing so. Charity can see the vein on Vanessa’s forehead threatening to pop as she watches them, the helicopter parent in her just begging to jump out, but she somehow manages to keep her cool.

Charity hates how much she loves this absolutely ridiculous woman sometimes, hates it with all she has, and yet she knows she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Ew. She might have gotten more used to this whole actually ‘confronting and managing your feelings in a healthy way’ bullshit in the past year but one thing she’ll never get used to is thinking and feeling disgustingly soppy stuff like that.

She’s jolted from her thoughts when she hears Moses’ familiar yelp from across the room. Her first reaction is panic, but she’s soon calmed when she looks over and sees that the only danger her kids are facing is the danger that Noah’s been replaced by some scarily similar doppelganger because there he is, across the room, pinning both of the boys down on the sofa and tickling them until they’re squealing.

Brenda’s giving them looks, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Charity gives her the nastiest glare she can manage – nobody judges her kids but her.

(And Vanessa too, she supposes).

“Who’s next?” Doug calls out in the jolliest voice he can. Charity pinches the bridge of her nose between her index finger and her thumb; they’ve not even had their shot yet and she’s already absolutely exhausted with the charade. She has to give it to Doug, though - he’s clearly given his all to this thing, and it’s paid off, because if she didn’t already know the man behind the behind the fake beard and the hat, she’d say he was doing a pretty convincing job.

“Moses, Johnny, come here,” Vanessa calls across the café. The boys come toddling over, one after the other, Noah not far behind; he’s got a sulk on again, clearly ready to pretend the past five minutes haven’t happened.

Vanessa hoists Moses onto Doug’s lap – a sentence Charity never thought she’d be saying – and beams brightly at him. “Go on, then,” she says, “tell Santa what you want for Christmas.”

Charity only half-listens to her son’s following rant, knowing that Vanessa will be making a mental note of every last thing he says. She turns to her side where Noah’s standing with a face on, arms crossed over his chest looking every bit the sulky teenager he loves to pretend he isn’t.

“Oi, you,” she says quietly, nipping him in the side. “Perk up, will you? You’re putting everyone off their hot chocolate.”

“Shame,” he deadpans, keeping his expression carefully blank. Sometimes, he reminds her so much of herself that it infuriates her.

“What is your issue? Is spending a couple hours with your family really that difficult for you?”

“This isn’t my family,” he snaps. “Joe’s my family.”

And, of course. It always cycles back to this in the end.

“Well, Joe’s gone and I’m your mum, so what I say goes, yeah? And I say you’re gonna have to suck it up and get used to it, because none of this is changing anytime soon.”

He glares at her. “Whatever.” And with that he storms off.

Vanessa gives her a worried look, brow knit in what Charity thinks is probably pity. “You alright?” she asks, looking over Charity’s shoulder to where Noah’s now slumped on the sofa, scrolling mindlessly through his phone.

“Yeah,” she says, putting on the cheeriest smile she can muster, for Vanessa’s sake if not anything else. “I’m just – yeah. I’m alright, babe.”

When Doug finally cuts Moses off, telling him that he’ll do his very best to get him everything he wants but that he should probably hear from some of the other children now, Charity’s the one that lifts Johnny up and places him on Doug’s lap. He fusses for a moment, evidently uncomfortable with being sat on the lap of (what he thinks is) a stranger, but manages to calm down when Charity crouches in front of him and keeps a hold of his hand – the only downside being, of course, that Charity’s now sitting crotch-level to Doug.

Vanessa walks Moses over to the counter to get a biscuit, evidently satisfied with Charity’s abilities to calm her son down, leaving the two of them sat alone.

“Go on, babe,” she says gently, giving Johnny her most encouraging smile. “Why don’t you tell Santa what you want for Christmas?”

He looks between the two of them for a second, eyes squinted like he’s not quite made up his mind on whether they’re pulling some elaborate ploy or not. Eventually, he stretches up and starts whispering something in Doug’s ear. Charity watches as Doug’s expression goes from his default to something that closely mirrors the gooey look Vanessa gets on the rare occasion that Noah doesn’t shoot her down when she says something soppy.

Johnny slides off his lap when he’s done, giving Doug one of the brightest smiles Charity’s ever seen for him. She furrows her brow.

“Johnnybobs,” she says, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “Why don’t you go find Mummy and Moz, eh? I’ll be over in a minute.”

When Johnny’s walked off, she narrows her eyes and gives Doug the fiercest look she can. “What did he ask for, then?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say.” Doug taps his nose twice, eyes twinkling with far too much enjoyment at having something to hold over her head.

“ _Doug._ ”

“Sorry, Charity!” he says. “If you want to know, you’ll have to ask Johnny.”

“Doug, I’m not messing arou-“

She’s cut off when Nicola pushes forward, barging impatiently past her shoulder, kids on her heels. “Can we hurry it up? Some of us have got places to be.”

Doug jumps right back into Santa mode, not paying Charity any more mind as he starts back on his routine, asking Elliot what he wants this year.

She lets out an impatient huff. Whatever, she supposes. She’ll just have to ask him herself.

*

By the time the boys are finally ready for their bed, both Charity and Vanessa are absolutely exhausted.

Moses and Johnny have been excitable ever since their encounter with Santa, refusing to sit still for even a minute at a time, even just to eat. Noah locked himself in his room as soon as they got home and still hasn’t resurfaced by the time Charity’s towelling the boys off after their baths, which is somehow both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

The selfish part of Charity – the part that’s just spent her day running around two toddlers that refuse to give her a break for even a second – wants to go to bed, sleep for a thousand years and leave Vanessa to clean everything up and do the bedtime routine, but with the promise to herself of several glasses of wine when she’s done, she manages to persevere and tackle it head on.

She even runs Vanessa a bath and pours her her own glass of wine while she does bedtime on her own because yeah, she can be a nice girlfriend when she wants to, and it is Christmas after all.

Moses goes down fairly easily, having exhausted himself from the day’s antics. He doesn’t even last the entirety of a story before he’s out like a light, letting out the cutest little breaths. Charity sits and watches him for a few minutes, the even little rise and fall of his chest, and yeah.

Kids are pretty worth it, she thinks.

Johnny, on the other hand, is a bit more trouble. He stays in his bed easy enough, but every time she finishes one story he just demands another, and another, and another, until it’s beyond a joke. She’s beginning to run out of any she can even tell when he finally starts to show sign of wearing himself out, snuggling further into his covers and bringing his duvet up to his nose.

“Johnny,” she whispers, smoothing his hair out against his forehead. He hums contentedly at the action, struggling a little to keep his eyes open properly. “What did you ask Father Christmas for?”

She’d been trying to get it out of him all day, but to no avail. This time, however, there’s no fight -probably because he’s too tired to remember he’s meant to be keeping it a secret.

“Asked,” he yawns, “if he can make you my proper mummy too.”

Her heart stops. “You what?”

“So you can be my proper mummy. Like Noah and Moses and Debbie.”

“Oh, darling,” she says. She cups his little cheek in her hand, unsure of how she’s supposed to even reply to something like that.

She thinks that she’s probably meant to say something about how she already is his proper mummy if he wants her to be, and that he’s just as much hers as Noah, Moses and Debbie are, and that he doesn’t ever need to ask for that because she’ll always be there no matter whether he wants it or not.

But instead she just presses a kiss to his forehead and whispers, “Get some rest,” because she’s changed, but at the end of the day, she’s still her.

*

She’s just gotten settled on the sofa – glass of wine in hand, whole body stretched across the length of it, the latest episode of the police procedural drama Vanessa’s got her hooked on loaded on the TV – when Noah comes padding downstairs.

She sighs as soon as she hears the signature sound of his footsteps, because she can barely handle his moods on a good day where she’s got all her energy, but she’s definitely not in the mood for it tonight.

Surprisingly, however, instead of kicking off, when Noah enters the living room he goes straight to the kitchen. He doesn’t say anything, leaving her to her programme, but when he comes over to the sofa with two steaming mugs in his hands, tucks himself under her legs, pulls the throw down off the back of the sofa and drapes it over them, it says enough.

They watch in silence for a while, the only sounds aside from the TV being the slurping of their drinks, but during the second ad break, Noah breaks that silence.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice practically a mumble. “For earlier.”

“Yeah?” she says, eyes raised a little in shock. It was already obvious to her that this was what this was anyway – an apology – what with the tea and the TV and the closest thing to bonding they’ve done in months, but to hear him actually say it aloud is…

Well. She smiles.

“Yeah. I didn’t mean what I said.” He pauses, staring into the depths of his mug like the remaining traces of tea at the bottom of it will hold a script he should follow. “You are my family.”

“I know, babe,” she says.

“Even Vanessa.” His voice is sharper, like it’s still hard for him to admit, but the fact that he’s even trying means more to Charity than she thinks he’ll probably ever realise. “She’s alright, I suppose.”

“You reckon?”

“Yeah. Better than the rest of them, anyway.”

Charity snorts. “Yeah, well, the bar is sort of on the ground when it comes to that, but I’m sure she’ll appreciate it nonetheless.”

“And…” He stops himself, pulling his blanket up further, as if to bury himself deeper into the sofa.

“And?” she prompts gently.

He sighs, looking up to the ceiling as if he can’t believe he’s about to say yet another soppy thing, like he thinks all his mates are standing in the dark corners of the room ready to pounce as soon as they hear it.

“It’s alright,” he says. “All of it. Johnny too, even. I mean, he’s annoying, but so’s Moz, so… As far as families go… yeah. It’s fine.”

Charity can’t help but beam. His words are nonchalant, hidden behind the guise of not really caring at all, but she can feel just how genuine they are. It’s barely anything, really, but it feels like everything.

“Shh,” he says, just as the title screen plays again. “It’s back on.”

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me :)
> 
> noahdingles.tumblr.com or @charitydingles on twitter


End file.
